Cool links of the week

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here in daily posts. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

How diamonds are made? An interesting story on a beautifully designed website. Tip: hold your finger or cursor over the 3D diamond to move it around.

It’s time to talk about my writerdeck. Veronica took an old laptop and transformed it into a disconnected digital typewriter. (If you prefer, there’s a video version too.)

Is AI profitable yet? A tracker of spending and revenue for cutting-edge AI companies. It’s a gold rush: the only profitable one is the one selling the shovels and pickaxes (Nvidia).

Placedog. A free stock image library of everyone’s favorite best friend: dogs[citation needed].

Historic WordPress. Copies of the admin dashboard and default theme from the earliest WordPress versions, including the most beautiful wp-admin of all time (2.5).

Kill Yr Substack. A browser extension that replaces Substack links (including custom domains) with archived copies from Archive.org. For Chrome and Firefox; manual installation.

Markerhighlight.js. A JavaScript library for generating text highlights. Analog-style highlights — yellow marker pen, red circles, that sort of thing.

WhatCable. A free and FOSS application for macOS that identifies USB-C cable specs and displays them in plain English. (Did you know USB-C cables vary widely? It’s more of a non-standardized standard.)

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At the opening of Build 2026, Microsoft lived up to the nature of the event — focused on developers — and announced, among other things, a slew of updates to make Windows 11 more appealing to this audience. The linuxification of Windows is moving forward at full steam, now with native coreutils and container support in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Beyond that, plenty of things involving AI “agents” — the big theme this year — including native support for OpenClaw.

Wipr 2 expands Safari ad blocking to all other apps

Wipr 2 icon.Wipr 2, the Safari ad blocker created by Kaylee Serena (and the one I use), got a new feature that extends its functionality system-wide: Filtr.

Developed over the past ten months, it makes use of a new technology introduced in version 26 of Apple’s operating systems, the URL Filter. According to Kaylee, it allows you to “to block network requests system-wide without having access to any network traffic at all, and with more granularity than previous solutions.” She says this is the first app to make use of the URL Filter.

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My backpack at FIB16, in Belém (PA)

During the Brazilian Internet Forum (FIB16), in Belém, Pará, I carried a backpack to the convention center with basic items to spend the day there, do the work I was hired to do, and when I had some free time (which was rare), take a look at this Manual do Usuário.

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Brazilian Internet Forum (FIB16) in Belém, Pará: A visual tour

I had the opportunity to participate in yet another edition of the Internet Forum in Brazil (FIB16), this time in the Amazon forest region, in Belém, Pará. The event, organized by NIC.br, brings together people from different sectors to debate hot and/or important topics related to the internet in the country.

My FIB16, however, was a bit different. Like the previous edition in Salvador, Bahia, I came here hired by NIC.br to host the interview podcast Nós da Internet. I opted to stay for fewer days this time, which packed my interview schedule and kept me from attending the panel discussions. (A tip that’s useful for me: all of them were streamed and are available on YouTube.)

To not miss out on covering the event for this Manual, I thought I’d document the venues and moments of FIB16 and the behind-the-scenes of Nós da Internet in photos. Also, a few more pictures of Belém and its touristic spots.

It had been a long time (really long) since I’d photographed anything other than family events. Ignore the weird angles, blown-out lights, and strange colors. I noticed I’d forgotten everything I ever knew about photography — which, to be honest, was never much to begin with.

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Indigo unifies Bluesky and Mastodon in one app

Indigo app icon: purple, with a white circle in the middle and the top of the letter “i” cut out within the circle.I had the opportunity to test Indigo before its launch — on the 12th — a social media app that unifies the timelines of Bluesky and Mastodon.

The duo of developers, Aaron Vegh and Ben McCarthy, have experience in the field. They’re also behind Croissant, an older app that lets you post simultaneously to Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads. Seen together, it’s as if Indigo were an evolution of Croissant — you can also post to Bluesky and Mastodon at the same time from Indigo.

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How to disable WordPress 7.0’s new AI features

Released this Wednesday (20th), WordPress 7.0’s headline feature was supposed to be real-time collaboration. But in the final stretch, after beta versions, Matt Mullenweg, the project’s leader, postponed the feature and promoted LLM integration to be the version’s centerpiece instead.

(Matt’s leadership was a shitshow, with delays, new demands with unrealistic deadlines, and as always, plenty of finger-pointing. “What’s wrong with WordPress?”, asks the only person with the power to change WordPress’s direction.)

If you don’t see the value in or are wary of an infusion of generative AI on your website, blog, or online store (a plausible concern, I must say), fortunately there’s a way to disable all this new AI stuff. If you have access to the wp-config.php file, add this line:

define( 'WP_AI_SUPPORT', false );

If the file is beyond your reach, install the Turn Off AI Features plugin.

You can’t imagine my relief watching this drama from the outside. In early May, we migrated this Manual do Usuário to ClassicPress, a lifeline that I discovered back in 2022 and which, six years later, remains active and better than ever. How can you not love the idea of free software?

Still thinking about Google I/O…

Google presented “AI agents” capable of doing people’s work in countless scenarios, none of them very believable for real people. (Who needs AI to organize a neighborhood block party?) At TechCrunch, Sarah Perez writes a solid critique of this questionable utopia that Google is trying to sell us.

On my end, I think we’re living a “Groundhog Day” moment of that Google Now feature from ~2012, which would notify you via push notification that your flight’s gate had changed. As if that information wasn’t already on your face the whole time at the airport. For 15 years Google has been using different technologies, each increasingly complex and expensive, to try to solve problems that no human being has ever actually had.

Cool links of the week

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here in daily posts. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

Singularity (6min31s). The new short film from Blender Studios, from the renowned open-source 3D editor. I thought it was pretty cool.

The AI Resist List (in English). A database of initiatives resisting the AI empire. Among the site’s creators is journalist Karen Hao, who is launching her latest book in Brazil, The AI Empire, published by Rocco.

Fits on a floppy. A manifesto for small software (in the sense of: taking up little memory space). The page itself includes a semi-hidden game where you have to click on flying floppy disks. For those under 30, “floppy disks” are the save buttons. Tip from Rafael.

Parallel Cities. Literally which cities are at the same latitude. A shout-out to folks in Pretoria (South Africa) and Windorah, latitude “neighbors” of Curitiba.

Hexagon world map. The map is dynamic and renders in just 10 KB of code.

Weather Replay. A weather forecast history for the whole world since the 1940s, based on data from the Copernicus Observatory of the European Union. (Works in Brazilian cities and any other country too.)

Where Now? A kind of “personal Foursquare,” this app marks the places of interest you’ve visited — and everything stays local. Markings can be manual or automatic. Free, for iOS.

Google wants to be the interface for the web

The opening of Google I/O this year (35-minute video recap) showed a Google less shy about transforming the web into raw material for its AIs.

Search will become (even more) a souped-up ChatGPT, and also the checkout counter for every online store, and YouTube will use video clips to create answer pages.

Notice that in all these announcements, Google/YouTube transforms itself into a curator and interface for web content, without attribution or with minimal credit given. You won’t visit websites anymore; you’ll visit Google — and you’ll stay there. On the flip side, whoever calls themselves a “content creator” is actually a content supplier for platforms. It’s always been that way for Meta (Instagram), TikTok, and YouTube; now it’s also the case for Google, even if unintentionally (myself included!).

All of this amounts to a complete betrayal of everything Google once stood for (and was) back then. Maybe people like this new incarnation because the web, poor thing, has long suffered from the pernicious incentives and destructive influence of Google itself, but nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.

By the way: Manual do Usuário project offers an instance of SearxNG, a metasearch engine that displays ten (or more) blue links to actual websites. It’s free. Use it and spread the word.

Cool links

Editor’s note: Missing the daily links? They became “weekly links.” After a year, keeping up the daily pace started to take its toll. The longer gap between posts brings another advantage: a focus on cool links, leaving aside the news items — which I used to include in the daily posts to add more substance. After all, when I created this section the goal was to share and celebrate the good things that pop up on the web. Let’s get back to basics.

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Taken. This page lists and explains all the data that any website collects from your device the moment you access it.

Night and Day. A world map showing in real time where it is day and where it is night. There are controls to adjust the map in the upper right corner of the page.

Killed by Apple. It’s not just Google that has a killing streak with products and services. (Although Apple’s “lifespan” seems a bit longer on average.)

The Thirty Under Thirty Fraud Watch. A site that tracks and explains every Forbes “30 Under 30” honoree caught committing fraud. The list is long and includes superstars of the grift, such as Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes.

Email.md. A Markdown editor for generating responsive emails. Looks good! One of these days I’ll test it in the Manual newsletter.

Momotaro. A new pomodoro app, but with an adorable visual style. Free, for iOS.

Android 17, Gemini Intelligence, and Googlebook: My first impressions  youtube.com

Google announced Android 17 and a new line of laptops in a pre-recorded video shown “live” (?) on Tuesday (12th). The Android 17’s highlight is artificial intelligence agents, which has elevated Gemini to “Gemini Intelligence.” (more…)

Nothing has changed on Instagram; Meta has always read your DMs

Since May 8th, Instagram stopped offering the option of direct messages (DMs) with end-to-end encryption (e2ee). The announcement was made quietly on a page in Meta’s help documentation, which reflects the importance of this feature within Instagram — close to zero. In reporting the news, however, the media did a poor job, stretching the truth or even resorting to misinformation, inflaming public opinion for no good reason.

I am the first to criticize Meta, which is why we must be careful with our accusations, lest we weaken the real arguments against it and its practices.

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A screen addict on the couch

A few months ago, during a therapy session, I mentioned the possibility that I might be addicted to screens. The psychologist asked what I do when I’m not looking at them. I could only come up with a few things — all simple, some pathetic, like “washing dishes.”

She said it’s common for addicts, upon recognizing their addiction, to find themselves in an existential void. I think there’s no doubt that “washing dishes” is a sign of a huge void, right?

I realized this problem while reading these three paragraphs published by Dave Rupert:

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Links of the Day

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here in daily posts. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

Meta: New AI measures to identify teens. Meta will use AI to scan photos and videos and detect people’s height and bone structure in order to place teenagers in age-appropriate experiences. Meta says this isn’t facial recognition, as if analyzing bone structure were somehow better. The technology is coming to Brazil and EU, starting with Instagram.

iOS 26.5 RC hints at sideloading coming soon to Brazil (pt_BR), iHelp BR. Can’t wait!

Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model without consent. Worth noting if storage space is tight on your computer.

Artemis II photo timeline. They took all the official Artemis II photos and cross-referenced them with the mission’s event schedules to generate a timeline.

Artblock. An extension (Chromium and Firefox) that replaces ads with works of art and NASA photos. Brilliant! It’s not available in the extension stores yet, though.

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